In this era of synthesized evidence base, one of my intellectually aberrant student asked Howcan we indulge in a popular coronary procedure with class 1 indication backed by level C evidence ? (As defined by the seemingly invincible guideline committee of various International cardiology organizations .)

*Caution : If you think you haven’t yet reached that the level of individuality , come what may , you are expected follow these advisories which are primarily aimed at providing quality care and you will be pardoned of any adversaries as well !

Mohandas Karam Chand Gandhi , father of my country , India , made these observations in year 1925 about the fundamental constituents of violence in society . These words of monumental wisdom came when he was addressing young Indians in a country- side rally .

Note, his finger points to , what exactly is relevant to our profession ! He emphasized this nearly 100 years ago, when medical science was at its infancy .One can only guess what would be Mahatma’s comment about our profession in it’s current form !

Should we include moral, behavioral and ethical classes right from the first year of medical school along with Anatomy , physiology and bio chemistry.Medical council of India obviously need to burn more mid night oil , I wish it happens in my life time. !

In one of my meetings , I told a small gathering , that regular exercise can shrink atherosclerotic plaquesand regress CAD. I also quoted , a recent large study which has proven this fact convincingly !

I concluded, simple exercise and other life style changes,risk factor correction may convert a 90% lesion to 70 or even 50 % . I stressed the importance of this study and asked my colleagues to avoid misuse of Angioplasties .

When many seemed to agree with me , one angry Interventional cardiologist questioned me, and asked the name of the study, and in which journal it came , What was quality of the paper ?

I told him , It is an Imaginary studydone in my back yard . It never got published in print. You may call it as E-journal* , not exactly though.It is not available in any websites , but located in the biological servers, and neuronal circuits as digital imprints in learned brains !

*Journal of experience

You may call it , a scientific forgery , to quote a non-existent study,

“But this study benefits whole lot of my patients”.

He was amused , and became agitated !

He told over the mike , “You are making foolish statement. . . don’t corrupt young minds” !

May be , he is true !

I asked him to be calm and requested to listen to another study which I was about to quote . . .

He couldn’t sit any more and rushed out of the hall !

Final message

We are ready to believe all those rubbish stories about a fourth generation self disappearing BVS that is able to scaffold a coronary artery and maintain a MLD by 2.5mm and TVR by 20 % and prevent near MAZE at 30 days by 9 % and improve long term survival by 6 months at the cost of 100, 000 Rs per month .Only to realise, it may be a farce . . . 5 years down the lane !

How to cleanse the darkened face of science ?

When falsehoods come with evidence and harm people , Good deeds can be preached without evidence to save our fellow human beings !